When Derrygonnelly and Kinawley met at the semi-final stage of the Senior Championship in 2020 there were some who thought this was the best time for a side to topple a Harps team looking to win their sixth consecutive New York Cup.

Two first half goals ensured the Harps stayed on track and put to bed any questions around them with a comprehensive 2-07 to 1-02 victory.

The teams meet again at the same stage this Saturday and while the defeat would have hurt Kinawley, their manager Ollie Fay is not looking at previous meetings that have gone before them and is expecting whatever went on in those matches to have no bearing at the weekend.

Putting in a performance is what Fay is looking from his players and the rest will take care of itself.

“We’ve kind of moved on. This Satuday’s game whatever has gone before is just gone and this Saturday will be a different game for Derrygonnelly and a different game for us,” said Fay.

“And it is just about getting a performance and I know it is a cliché but getting the performance is all you’re looking for. Anything that has gone before is completely irrelevant for Saturday night.

“You could say we didn’t perform last year but maybe Derrygonnelly had a lot got to do with us not performing last year. We are just hoping that we go out this Saturday and we do ourselves justice and put a performance in.”

Kinawley got over the challenge of Roslea in the quarter-final and while it ended up comfortable in the end Fay knows there is more needed in the semi-final.

“You are always looking to improve in every game and you need to improve a lot from quarter-final to a semi-final. It’s going to be a completely different game, it’s going to be more intense so you are hoping you will improve.”

Fay was an interested spectator for the two games Derrygonnelly played against Ederney and he was impressed with what he saw. And with his side having not played in three weeks he is hoping they will be able to get up to the pitch of the game quickly.

“They are after competing in two tough games. We are after sitting for the last three weeks without any games so Derrygonnelly will have a serious upper hand on us from having the couple of weeks of game time.

“So look it hopefully we can get up to that level of championship football after sitting out for the last three weeks.

“Regardless of what amount of training it is very, very hard to replicate the intensity of a game of football especially championship football. It’s hard to beat games to improve your sharpness and intensity and workrate,” Fay added.

On the other side, Derrygonnelly manager, Mick Glynn is hoping the two intense battles with Ederney will not have taken too much out of his players.

“Kinawley will be fresh. It will be three weeks from their quarter-final whereas it will be our third weekend in a row and we have had very tough games.

“I hope our boys have the energy to go to battle again.”

Glynn is well aware of the threat posed by Kinawley and knows they will need little motivation for the semi-final.

“We’ve had a few tough games with Kinawley and they are an up and coming team. They are very strong physically, they always put it up to us so if we don’t perform on the day we will be in trouble, so we are hoping our lads come with a good performance.”

Derrygonnelly learned the most from the drawn game against Ederney to win out in the replay, as they kept Ederney goalless while they also got their match ups right as well.

With Kinawley hitting three goals past Roslea it is something the Haprs will have looked at again: “The first day we conceded three goals and when you concede three goals you probably don’t deserve to even get a draw so we were lucky to come away with a draw.

“So we worked on that and our defence and match ups and luckily in the replay we didn’t concede any goals and that was a big factor in us getting through.”

With two massive games against Ederney under the belt, the strength in depth of the Derrygonnelly squad will be key once again, as it proved in the two previous games.

Glynn was full of praise for the Harps squad:

“In both games against Ederney our bench was very important and it has been all year.

“We have used the maximum number of subs and we are lucky to have strength in depth. We have good young lads who are chomping at the bit to get in and when they do get the call they are out to show us that they should be starting. It’s a good situation to be in.

“They have made major contributions when they have come on.

“In both games against Ederney we could have been beaten. They had few opportunities to take the lead in normal time and we were lucky to get to extra time and then our bench were a big factor in extra time.

“Next Saturday could be very similar,” added Glynn.